Beijing Moves to Enforce Care for Older Parents

Legislature Amends Laws, Calling on Government to Do More and for Adult Children to Assist Their Parents

By

Carlos Tejada

Dec. 30, 2012 11:45 a.m. ET

BEIJING—Chinese officials signaled rising concerns over the nation's growing ranks of elderly with new measures urging adult children to visit their parents and opening the door for elders to sue for better care.

The amendments to current laws on the elderly enacted on Friday are vague and likely difficult to enforce. But they fit into a broader conversation in China that includes the breakdown of social mores in a fast-moving...